The Importance of Information Governance

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For some, information governance is a necessary but boring part of the Information Management and Content Management strategy. For others, it’s the piece of the puzzle that creates the framework and culture to a strong and effective way to managing your corporate information.

With so much information and content circulating the planet, whatever your view, information governance is crucial to your enterprise. Without it, information will be leaking from your business and you will become vulnerable.

The biggest risks to the enterprise are in loss of IP, litigation costs and damage to reputation. 24% of organisations in the UK have had a compliance issue in the last 2 years. The cost of storage is increasing because of the rising volumes of storage required. Without an information governance framework in place, the risks are very real. And senior management are finally taking them very seriously.

Fundamentally, information governance done well will protect your business and reduce your costs. It can make your organisation more competitive and worth more! It’s a win-win situation. But it is hard to deliver.

The CIO cares about information. However, it’s IT that needs to take back control of its systems and security by providing the right framework to meet the changing needs of employees, and customers. With so many sensitive documents across your business, they need to be protected and policies enforced to prevent inappropriate sharing. Quality Enterprise Content Management systems will help you do this, with the user in mind – you don’t want to stop users accessing the information they need afterall.

IT can’t be the data guardians in isolation. They have to talk to the people across the business to make sure they get it right, and get people onside. They’ll find ways around the system otherwise and efforts to create a strong culture of information governance will be lost.